AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘But you’re a realist, Luke; you know that isn’t always enough,’ she continued. ‘We...we want such different things from life—’
‘Yes—I want you and you want me,’ he said bluntly. ‘Different, and yet the same. We complement each other, Rosalind, we know that we fit together...like the two halves of a whole.’ His hands bunched into fists on the shiny white wall as he looked down into the carved stillness of her coldly classic features. ‘If you want this to be our final reckoning, so be it. Look at me and tell me you feel nothing for me. Convince me. Look into my eyes, damn you, and tell me that you don’t love me and never could.’
She lifted tragic green eyes, rage breaking through the marble-like stillness of her façade. ‘I don’t love you, Luke, and I never could,’ she snarled, hating him for forcing her to be brutal.
He drew a breath, and his hands fell heavily to her shoulders. His eyebrows slanted and his mouth quirked.
‘And people pay to see you do this?’ He cocked his head. ‘Oh, Roz
, I hope nobody ever asks me for my opinion of you as an actress.’
His response was so unexpected that she began to slide down the wall. How could he not believe her? She thought she deserved an Academy award for her performance. ‘I don’t love you!’ she repeated feverishly. ‘I really don’t!’
He caught her by the waist, preventing her from falling off the crazy tilt of the world. ‘We’ve done things round the wrong way, haven’t we, Roz... had the honeymoon before the wedding?’
She held her hands up in a warding-off gesture, only to have them captured and kissed. ‘Luke, for God’s sake, it wouldn’t work—’
‘Why not?’
A million reasons...most of them to do with other people, she thought.
‘It just wouldn’t. I have a career that takes me all over the place and I like to move around—have plenty of excitement going on in my life. You wouldn’t like it... you’re too conventional...you need to be settled... have a fixed home, family...children...’ A light went on in her overloaded brain. ‘You’d make a wonderful father; you should have a big, loving family of kids to make up for all you missed in being an only child. I can’t even give you one child’s love...’
She went on to tell him that he hadn’t thought it through; she listed all the reasons why he would come to resent her childlessness and announced that she never intended to get married anyway because she didn’t see the point if there were no children to protect.
‘Fine. We’ll just live together for the rest of our lives.’
‘Luke!’
He cupped her face tenderly. ‘Look, Rosalind, I know what you’re doing and it’s very kind of you, but you can’t protect me from my own emotions. Let me bear the responsibility for a change. I have thought this through. For the last twenty-four hours I’ve thought of nothing else. I know damned well that you and my aunt are linked in some way that she doesn’t want you to reveal, probably by something that happened in her past, something she’s bitterly ashamed of—and, for someone of her generation and religious upbringing, it’s probably to do with sex.
‘Now, I know that you can’t possibly be her daughter but maybe you’re her connection to someone else—No!’ He pinned her mouth shut with his thumb. ‘Let me finish. I’m not going to ask you about it again—I won’t ever ask you. I don’t have to. It’s between you and Peggy, not you and me.
‘Can’t you see that telling you I loved you before you walked into that room was an expression of faith? I will never lose faith in you, Roz. I believe in you. You’re a passionate idealist, a true and honest friend, never venal or self-serving at the expense of others, and because I have that certainty in my heart I can accept everything else on trust...
‘I love you for all your qualities...for your joy and your stubbornness, your fiery dramatics and your deep humanity—yes... even for your sterility.’
There were tears again in the dark eyes, tears and something else that vanquished her doubts and fatigue—a deep, passionately held commitment to what he was saying.
‘The pain that you carry from your past is the part of the compassion you bring to the present. I’d love to heal that pain for you but I know I can’t; I can only do as you do for those you love: be there when the hurt is too much to bear alone. There might not be children from our love but—oh, Roz, there’ll still be love...so much love...’
He leaned his forehead against hers and whispered prayerfully, ‘I need you to be there for me too, Roz. Through good and bad, in sickness and in health. That’s what this is all about. Trust. If you love me, then believe in me. Keep your secrets, and believe that nothing will make me betray our love. Please...’
Rosalind’s arms went around him, tight and hard. It had taken magnificent courage for him to say all that, to open himself up so completely before she had uttered a single word of love, and she could feel the shock of it shivering through his entire body.
Trust. Betrayal. Rosalind knew which of the two words she associated with Luke. He was intelligent, resourceful, sensitive and strong and deeply thoughtful...of course she trusted his judgement and the depth of his compassionate understanding. He would never betray those he loved, any more than Rosalind would. In that sense they were two of a kind. There would be difficulties ahead but Rosalind knew that there was no secret that she couldn’t share with him, no problem or sorrow they couldn’t discuss. For now, she was content to hug the revelation to herself, but she knew that one day soon she would talk to him about Peggy and Peter, and in doing so she would create not a gulf but another bridge of understanding...
‘The most important scene in my life and it’s being played out in an empty hospital waiting room,’ she said in a choked voice. ‘I somehow expected a revolving set and maybe a full orchestra and chorus. You’re a cheap guy with a proposal, Luke James!’
His head lifted. ‘Is that an “I believe”?’ he asked rawly, a dark splendour dawning in his eyes at her flippant reply.
She began laughing through her tears. Her dear, darling, cautious Luke wanted the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed.
‘Oh, yes, it’s an I believe. I love you, Luke James. Now and for always, I believe...’
